“Misfit” by Robert A. Heinlein (Astounding Science Fiction, November 1939)

This is a real gem of an anthology, and what a year 1939 was! It’s hard to know where to start with this lot, but it would probably be with the three that really stand out for me, Van Vogt’s “Black Destroyer”, John W. Campbell’s (under his “Don A. Stuart” pseudonym) “Cloak of Aesir” and Milton A. Rothman’s “Heavy Planet”, which are all stories that impacted greatly on me when I first started reading short SF way back in my early teens.

But there are also so many other good stories here, in particular C. L. Moore’s “Greater Than Gods”, Jack Williamson’s “Star Bright”, Lester Del Rey’s “The Day is Done”, Eando Binder’s “I, Robot”, Isaac Asimov’s “Trends”, and the two Robert A. Heinlein stories “Life-Line” and “Misfit”. Most of the others I can’t really remember, as I read them so long ago, and there are a few that I don’t think I’ve actually read before.

This book was the first in a very long series, and Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories, Volumes 1-25, was one of the greatest ever series of science fiction anthologies. Published by DAW Books, the twenty-five volumes each covered a single year, and the entire series spanned the years 1939-1964.

The first twelve of these volumes were also later repackaged in a series of hardcovers, Isaac Asimov Presents the Golden Years of Science Fiction. There were six volumes in total of that one, First Series-Sixth Series, each one containing two of the original paperback volumes. For some reason (I’ve never found out why), this series of hardcovers stopped at the half-way mark, and the remaining thirteen volumes of the paperbacks were never collected in hardback. Pity. Those hardbacks were really nice, and I’m fortunate enough to have all six of them.

The twenty-five volume paperback set is a different matter. I only started to collect those several months ago, and so far I only have nine of them, although I continue to pick up the odd one here and there, with the intention of collecting the entire series, eventually. The books in this series are also quite expensive and hard to find, and most of the copies that I’ve seen are from US sellers, so the shipping charges to the UK and Ireland are also very expensive. I’ve often seen costs totalling up to $50 on Ebay for one of these paperbacks inclusive of shipping, as some of the US sellers charge ridiculously and inexcusably high transatlantic shipping charges. It’s much better if you can find them on Amazon UK, as they only charge £2.80 shipping from all Amazon sellers, even those in the US.

Anyways, nine down, sixteen to go. Oboy! I guess it’s time to get the credit card out and start buying a few more of these books…

One of my favourite Doctor Who fanzines is Panic Moon, edited and published by the extra-talented and hard working Oliver Wake. Just hot off the presses (well, last month, so pretty recent) is the newest edition of Panic Moon, dated May 2014.

Now Panic Moon isn’t just one of those fairly common electronic fanzines. It’s a genuine, old-fashioned, paper and ink fanzine. But to add to it all, it isn’t a typical A5 or A4 fanzine. It’s a sexy, tiny little A6 zine, so cute and cuddly that you can just slip it in your pocket and take it anywhere with you. This may seem to be a pretty strange choice of size, but it works. This is definitely an attractive little zine.

And the quality of the contents are nothing to sneer at, either. As with previous issues of Panic Moon, the standard of the contents is very high, covering both classic Doctor Who and NuWho, and illustrated with some very nice original artwork. We also have articles and other bits ‘n’ pieces on the following:

An Unearthly Child

Marco Polo

The Time Meddler

The Savages

The Time of the Doctor

Doomsday

The Girl Who Waited

Doctor Who in Germany

missing episode animations

space opera in Doctor Who

the connection between The Daemons and Ghost Light

in praise of Carmen Munroe

Michael Grade

the Raston Warrior Robot

Tanya Lernov

the TARDIS doors

Planet of Giants

The Enemy of the World

That’s quite a lot to squeeze into a tiny little zine like this. But that’s Panic Moon all over – small and wholesome. For less than the price of a pint of beer (and that includes postage), you get a lovely little fanzine, with oodles of great reading. This is a real bargain, and all self-respecting Doctor Who fans should be supporting fanzines like this. Do yourselves a big favour and grab a copy, while it is still available.

For more information on the May 2014 edition of Panic Moon, head on over to the Panic Moon blog, where you’ll find pricing and ordering details.

This month marks the first anniversary of the passing of science fiction author Iain M. Banks, who died on June 9th, 2013. He was taken from us at the tragically young age of only fifty-nine, after many months battling against terminal cancer. His death robbed the science fiction world of one of its greatest authors and leading lights.

Under his “Iain M. Banks” name (as opposed to “Iain Banks”, which he used for his mainstream literary works) he has written some of the best SF, primarily Space Opera, of the past couple of decades. And he has blazed a trail for (and competed with) the current generation of New Space Opera giants such as Alastair Reynolds, Peter F. Hamilton, Stephen Baxter and others who have dominated the SF field in recent years. New Space Opera fuses the best of Classic Space Opera and Hard SF, to produce what has become by far my favourite sub-genre of modern SF.

Most of Banks’s SF books are set in his remarkable Culture universe, and the Culture novels have created legions of adoring fans. And rightfully so, too, as they are excellent. So far, I’ve only read a couple of them, Player of Games and State of the Art (which is actually a short story collection), and I can fully recommend both books. I haven’t actually got around to reading any of the other Iain M. Banks books yet, although I have picked up copies of all of them, and they are sitting on the bookshelves, calling out to me. If Consider Phlebas, Use of Weapons, Excession, Inversions, Look to Windward, Matter, Surface Detail and The Hydrogen Sonata are half as good as Player of Games and State of the Art, I have a lot of really good reading ahead of me.

Banks has also written a couple of non-Culture books – Against a Dark Background and The Algebraist – which I’ve also got sitting on my bookshelves, waiting to be read. It’ll be interesting to read something NOT set in the Culture milieu, but I fully expect them to be up to his usual excellent writing standards.

Iain M. Banks is rightfully credited with being in the vanguard of a relatively small group of modern SF authors who helped spearhead the reinvigoration and rehabilitation of the humble Space Opera in the world of SF literature, during the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. He helped play a fundamental role in reinventing that much-maligned format as a serious literary sub-genre within the wider spectrum of SF, after it had spent many years out of fashion with most serious SF authors and readers.

For this, as an ardent Space Opera fan, I’ll be forever indebted to him.

This month marks the first anniversary of the passing of science fiction author Iain M. Banks, who died on June 9th, 2013. He was taken from us at the tragically young age of only fifty-nine, after many months battling against terminal cancer. His death robbed the science fiction world of one of its greatest authors and leading lights.

Under his “Iain M. Banks” name (as opposed to “Iain Banks”, which he used for his mainstream literary works) he has written some of the best SF, primarily Space Opera, of the past couple of decades. And he has blazed a trail for (and competed with) the current generation of New Space Opera giants such as Alastair Reynolds, Peter F. Hamilton, Stephen Baxter and others who have dominated the SF field in recent years. New Space Opera fuses the best of Classic Space Opera and Hard SF, to produce what has become by far my favourite sub-genre of modern SF.

Most of Banks’s SF books are set in his remarkable Culture universe, and the Culture novels have created legions of adoring fans. And rightfully so, too, as they are excellent. So far, I’ve only read a couple of them, Player of Games and State of the Art (which is actually a short story collection), and I can fully recommend both books. I haven’t actually got around to reading any of the other Iain M. Banks books yet, although I have picked up copies of all of them, and they are sitting on the bookshelves, calling out to me. If Consider Phlebas, Use of Weapons, Excession, Inversions, Look to Windward, Matter, Surface Detail and The Hydrogen Sonata are half as good as Player of Games and State of the Art, I have a lot of really good reading ahead of me.

Banks has also written a couple of non-Culture books – Against a Dark Background and The Algebraist – which I’ve also got sitting on my bookshelves, waiting to be read. It’ll be interesting to read something NOT set in the Culture milieu, but I fully expect them to be up to his usual excellent writing standards.

Iain M. Banks is rightfully credited with being in the vanguard of a relatively small group of modern SF authors who helped spearhead the reinvigoration and rehabilitation of the humble Space Opera in the world of SF literature, during the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. He helped play a fundamental role in reinventing that much-maligned format as a serious literary sub-genre within the wider spectrum of SF, after it had spent many years out of fashion with most serious SF authors and readers.

For this, as an ardent Space Opera fan, I’ll be forever indebted to him.

Here’s the penultimate part of my look back at Doctor Who’s 50th Anniversary:

The Radio Times Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special

The TV Times Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special

11. Radio Times 50th Anniversay Special

The Radio Times Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special is a real doozy, with no less than TWELVE variant covers featuring all of the Doctors, including “War Doctor” John Hurt.

There’s also a Steven Moffat article, on set with Tennant, Smith and Hurt, a celebration of 50 Years of Radio Times Doctor Who covers, a detailed overview of all eleven Doctors, and even a competition to win the Doctor’s bow tie. What’s not to like about this? Another nice one.

12. TV Times 50th Anniversay Special

The TV Times had their own 50 Years of Doctor Who Anniversary edition, which was also pretty good, although they didn’t go quite as overboard as the Radio Times, with only four variant Doctor Who covers.

There is a nice Classic Companions piece, interviewing Peter Purves (Steven) and Frazer Hines (Jamie), plus a mini-review of The Day of the Doctor. But the main piece of the Doctor Who anniversary is the five-page 50 Years of Doctor Who Special celebration, which includes interviews with not only David Tennant and Matt Smith, but also Tom Baker and Peter Davison.

However, my absolute favourite was the A Brief History of Time (Lords) timeline, which runs along the bottom of the entire five pages of the main 50 Years of Doctor Who Special section. Anyone who knows me knows how much I like my timelines. Lovely.